Who has never dreamed of meeting an alien on Earth? It would still be necessary that this one really has an alien appearance to recognize it …
Published by Helium in 2014, Humains is a novel written by British author Matt Haig. In this book, we find an alien, Grub, taking possession of the body of a famous professor and mathematician from the University of Cambridge in England. This Professor is none other than Andrew Martin, the man who discovered an equation that could change the course of the future for humanity. Obviously, the change of inner identity of this man will have many consequences for him and his loved ones…
Learn everything "again"
When we find Professor Martin naked outside in the middle of the night, the media were at four hundred strokes the next day to post the news. Has Professor Martin gone mad?
As a reader, we of course understand of course that Andrew Martin found himself in this position because in truth he was no longer really "Andrew Martin" but a new soul in a body that already had a history, a family and a job. When the new Martin (who will be called the alien) wakes up in the hospital with a woman at his side, who talks to him but whom he does not know, he immediately feels panicked by this situation. The alien understands that this woman is Andrew Martin's wife. He will have to play a role in not being noticed, and act as a "normal" human would have done.
Humans, written in the first person, is therefore the diary of this alien who found himself in the body of a human for the first time. We will therefore follow all his adventures and his adaptation in human life, which was far from being a long quiet river.
A concentration of good mood
The alien gradually learns to behave like a human, and all this with the help of his "wife" Isobel, and their "son" Gulliver. Of course, these two dernier.es don't know that Andrew isn't really their family. By method of "learning by reproduction", the alien tries to adopt the same behavior as its "relatives". From beginning to end, we have a smile on our faces as we read the alien's personal reflections on the human world and their sometimes bizarre habits. For example, he does not understand why humans raise cows to kill them or why it is wrong to cheat on his partner. His experiences in the life of a human will question the daily life of the latter, while never being in judgment, which is the very appreciable side of the novel.
A novel full of benevolence
Finally, we understand towards the middle of the novel why our alien came to Earth (we let you of course find out!). Thanks to this novel created more or less in the form of a logbook, our alien having -almost- become a new Andrew Martin offers us very intelligent and benevolent reflections about humain.es. Towards the end of the novel, he offers us a list of hundred points that show us why he is happy to be a human and that we are lucky to have each had this opportunity to live on this planet Earth.
In short, we greatly appreciated the narrator's questions and reflections on the meaning of human life. This book brings balm to the heart and makes us feel alive. If you're a fan of classical English literature, you'll also appreciate references to Shakespeare's Hamlet and Emily Dickinson's poems.
"No one will understand you. And finally, it's not that important. What really is that you understand each other."
With the beautiful days returning, also brighten your heart with this warm and intelligent novel, you will come out only joyful and full of love.
